


Enchanted (To Meet You)

by blackorchids



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtuber RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No YouTube, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fluff, Hopeful Ending, Kid Fic, M/M, Meet-Cute, Tumblr Prompt, Wedding Fluff, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 19:17:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: Zoe's finally marrying Alfie, which is cool, but Joe's much more interested in Alfie's cute uni roommate.





	Enchanted (To Meet You)

**Author's Note:**

> hasty title from taylor swift's _enchanted_ because this starbucks is about to close and I need to post this
> 
> soooort of prompted on tumblr

Zoe and Alfie’s wedding is beautiful, as if anyone would have dared to expect anything different. The reception is in their own huge backyard, the entire thing littered with fairy lights and tea candles in jars and pavillion-style tents covered with gauzy white material that looks alive, with the evening breeze picking up. Even Joe, who’d done his brother-in-law duty of helping Alfie stay as far away from planning as possible, couldn’t help but be taken in, fingers itching to draw or write something magical and whimsy and _entirely out of his preferred genre_.

After the bride and groom’s first dance, and the father-daughter dance, it’s Joe’s turn, and he loves his sister so much in that moment no matter how aggravating her anxiety had been in the lead up to the ceremony. He spins her faster and faster, ditching their carefully-learned choreography to make her squeal with breathless laughter, some of their closer friends starting to hoot and clap, slowly making their way onto the designated dancing area. Eventually, he lets up, because if he makes Zoe vom on her wedding night she’ll actually claw his eyes out with her terrifying fake nails.

She falls against him, still laughing, looking happier than he’s ever seen her, and he discreetly pats at her still-flat tummy before more or less shoving her back into Alfie’s arms to find his favorite niece.

Brit is playing beneath the dessert table with a handful of children, some familiar and some Joe’s never seen before. He feels like a superhero when she spots him and immediately abandons the game to rush him, her pale blue dress pouffy enough that she looks like a cupcake.

“Uncle Joe!” She cheers. “Dijya see me doing the flowers for mumma?”

“I did, Bee,” Joe assures her, emphasizing the hard d at the end of _did_ for her benefit because he’s a rockin’ uncle.

“Henry says I missed a spot but I swear I didn’t!”

“You did perfect,” Joe says, frowning for show. “Who is this horrible boy who’s telling all kinds of lies?”

“I was jus’ _kidding_ ,” a boy a little older than Brit says, crossing his arms and scowling. “She told me my bowtie was stupid.”

Brit looks caught out when Joe levels her with a shocked look and then she plasters on a pretty good look of innocence.

“I didn’t!”

“ _Now_ who’s lying?” Henry says, and Brit blows a raspberry at him but demands to escape Joe’s arms all the same. 

“Mumma says cow print isn’t wedding ‘propriate.” Brit tells Henry. “It’s okay, though, she won’t be mad at you.”

“Me and Brit wanted to dress up like monkeys,” Joe says, scratching under his arms for show and grinning when Brit and Henry cackle. “But Brit’s mum was being a bit of a bridezilla.”

“Ooh-hoo,” comes a voice from behind Joe, who straightens up and pretends he’s a respectable grown-up now that there’s another grown up approaching. “I’m telling Alf you said that about Zo.”

“I’ll say it to her face,” Joe says, dishonestly. He must seem convincing, though, because the stranger, tall and blonde, looks impressed with his gall. “Hi, I’m Joe, brother of the bride.”

“Caspar,” says the stranger, smiling with his whole face as he dramatically sticks out a hand for what ends up being a vigorous shake. “Alfie’s uni roommate.”

“Da-a-ad,” Henry says abruptly, stomping his foot in annoyance. Brit quickly stomps hers too, in solidarity, though she has inched closer to Joe once more at the appearance of a stranger. “Brit and me can’t reach the good desserts.”

“Fruit is the best dessert,” the guy—Caspar—tells his son, voice mild.

Henry scoffs and Brit looks between him and his father with wide eyes. She glances back at Joe to make sure he’s watching too, because she doesn’t know that Joe’s already intrigued by Alfie’s old mate whom he’s somehow managed to not meet before now.

“You know the deal, Henry,” Caspar says, tilting his head in challenge. “We have to eat a fruit or a veg before we get to eat a goodie.”

“I _saw_ you eating the cupcakes!”

Joe stifles a laugh, badly, and Henry and Caspar shoot him identical looks of betrayal. “What if we all had some berries, and then we can steal a whole plate of cupcakes and hide from Alfie and Zo?”

Brit’s already satisfied—she loves fruits, freakish child she is, but Henry levels Joe with a pretty incredible look of suspicion.

“Will there be chocolate ones?”

“I will personally find you the best chocolate cupcake on that table,” Joe tells him seriously. “It’ll be easy, as I helped to stack them.”

Henry’s eyes widen a little at the prospect of being in charge of stacking all of those cupcakes, but, after a glance at his father, he nods in agreement. “I only want strawberries.”

“You’ll have to be careful,” Joe tells him, leading his little group back towards the dessert table. The children have either scattered or retreated beneath the ground-length table cloth at the approaching adults, so it’s quiet again. “Brit’s allergic to strawberries, so you can’t get any on her.”

“No kissing either,” Caspar says, eyes crinkling with mischief when Henry and Brit both holler their disgusted protestations.

“Boys are gross,” Brit says loudly, giving Henry an unapologetic look. Henry shrugs, unbothered and already eying up the tower of cupcakes and the pile of strawberries Joe’s putting on plates.

After Caspar has deemed Henry healthy enough for cupcakes, Joe hands him and Brit each a plate with two cupcakes apiece, watches as they scamper off to find the rest of the children again, now that they’ve gotten what they’ve wanted.

“Do you ever feel you’ve just gotten played by a seven year old?” Caspar asks, unoffended, and Joe lets out a bark of laughter.

“Only always,” Joe agrees, and then he makes a very obvious shift in his sitting position so that he’s got one leg under the other and is facing Caspar dead on.

“What was Alfie like in uni?” he asks, and Caspar grins, pleased.

*

“So you and Caspar got on,” Zoe says, later, slumping a little for show, since she’d been secretly sipping non-alcoholic champagne every time there was a toast. She looks up and fixes Joe with a sudden, too-shrewd look and Joe uses the same angelic look Brit’s picked up from him.

“He’s a funny bloke.”

“Cute too,” Zoe says, and Joe thinks about making a scandalized joke, but it’s too predictable, which takes all of the fun out of it. He’s _actually_ tipsy, not just playing it up for the crowd, and he and Zoe are sort of flailing around, ostensibly dancing together again, the sun long set, the guests starting to trickle out, Alfie sitting on a lounger in one of the nearer pavilions, shooting the shit with a handful of his mates.

“You should get his number,” Zoe tells him, smiling a little. “He’s really sweet.”

Tipsy Joe is less likely to run away from genuine sentimentality, and Zoe knows that, because she presses a kiss against his cheek and pushes him away, already turning to go find Louise and Emma and the rest of the girls.

Joe stumbles once, twice, and then someone’s—three guesses as to whose—hands catch him ‘round the waist.

“Bit too much to drink, yeah?” Caspar says, giggling a little. Joe turns around, but Caspar doesn’t look any more intoxicated than he had hours earlier and the thought that Caspar might just—giggle—as a person is weirdly endearing.

“Just enough, I’d say,” Joe tells him, fingering his tie. He blinks and then realizes that the pattern is thousands of tiny happy pineapples. “Did you pick this out sober?”

Caspar grins, unoffended, and Joe swallows at the sight. It’s _possible_ that his big sister finally getting married has made him a little more susceptible to his own desire to settle down, but—Caspar, a man who makes bargain deals with his young son, who wears ridiculous ties and socks to weddings, who Alfie’s known forever without ever managing to mention him to Joe—and honestly, what the hell, Alfie—seems like a leap off the deep end when it comes to starting to date again.

Just in time for that thought to emerge, Henry and Brit come crashing into them, each of them overexcited in the way only too-tired young children can be, and Joe and Caspar each pick one of them up almost simultaneously. Brit settles her face on Joe’s shoulder immediately, but Henry looks like he’s trying to stay alert even as he loops an arm around Caspar’s neck, the four of them staying close together, like a little unit of their own.

Abruptly, Joe realizes he’s not just swaying because of the alcohol but because Caspar is _dancing with him_ , very proper, like he thinks they’re at a year six formal even though they’ve each got a child in their arms, and he’s still smiling down at Joe, easy and unassuming, but open about his interest.

“D’you want to maybe get coffee tomorrow morning?” Joe manages, and that’s when Henry settles down, eyes on Joe before he closes them the last time, a satisfied little grin on his young face.

“I think I can fit you in my busy schedule,” Caspar says, a little teasing, but whatever sting it may have had is entirely erased when he shifts Henry’s weight around so he’s only using one arm to hold him, rewrapping his free hand around Joe’s waist once more.

They keep swaying.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
